During use of a mobile stretcher in a hospital, it is frequently necessary to transfer a patient from the stretcher to another stretcher or to a bed or X-ray table, or vice versa. In some cases, this is done by simply positioning the two stretchers side by side and then having several persons physically lift and slide the patient from one stretcher to the other. This is dangerous to the patient, because the patient may be dropped on the floor between the stretchers. Further, it is dangerous to hospital personnel, because it is a common source of serious back injuries.
Devices have previously been developed to facilitate patient transfers. Early devices were special mechanisms separate from a stretcher, but these could be misplaced or at least might not be readily available when it was necessary to effect a patient transfer. Other devices were motor-driven and required electricity from a wall outlet, but wall outlets are not always handy when a patient transfer must be made.
One rather effective prior approach is to provide a transfer board which is movably supported on the stretcher itself, and in particular moves between a retracted position disposed below the patient support and an operational position bridging the gap between the patient support surfaces between which the patient is to be transferred. Examples of this type of transfer board are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,987,623 and 5,197,156, both of which are assigned to the same Assignee as the present application. While these pre-existing transfer boards have been generally adequate for their intended purposes, they have not been satisfactory in all respects.
The most important disadvantage is that, in the retracted position, they a project a relatively significant distance below the patient litter, and therefore interfere with the extent to which the patient support can be moved downwardly toward the base and the extent to which medical equipment can be temporarily inserted between the patient support and base for diagnostic or other purposes.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide an improved transfer mechanism which, in the retracted position, has a small and compact vertical height, and preferably can be contained completely within the patient support with no significant increase in size of the patient support.
A further object is to provide such a transfer mechanism which is comparable in structural complexity to or is structurally simpler than existing transfer board mechanisms.